Human Resources and Competitiveness. Report of the Committee on Human Resources, The President's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness. Research Report Series RR-87-27.

National Commission for Employment Policy (DOL), Washington, DC.

Competitiveness is a function of a nation's resources and how effectively those resources are used relative to that nation's competitors. The people of a nation, with their knowledge, skills, and attitudes, determine how effectively technology, capital, and trade will be used to the nation's competitive advantage. The competitive challenge to the human resources of the United States requires that the nation recognize its strengths and make them stronger, recognize its weaknesses and act together to address them. A crucial weakness that impedes the country's ability to address these and other competitiveness problems is the lack of structures through which the key economic actors in U.S. society--industry, labor, and government--can come together and systematically address the problems shared by all. To confront this systemic problem, the Commission on Industrial Competitiveness recommends that the federal advisory committees affiliated with the Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Treasury, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative be evaluated and revised to serve as a possible basis for the development of such consensus-building structures. Three other areas are pivotal to addressing the competitive challenge to U.S. human resources: (1) the quality of human resources must be enhanced; (2) the rapid redeployment of labor in the economy must be made possible; and (3) the most effective use of human resources must be made. (Author/KC)